During the Chinese Counteroffensive which resulted in the destruction of the 11th Motorized Rifle and the 9th Tank Divisions in summer 1996 in the Far Eastern Theater of Operations, the seeds where sown in the Volksarmee which would result in a military coup in the DDR and unification by force of the two German Republics. An East German Staff officer assigned to 1st Far Eastern Front HQ, overheard senior Soviet Officers discussing how the Deutsche Volksarmee (DVA) divisions could be used in a rear guard action as the 1st Far Eastern Front conducted a tactical withdrawal, because it was well know that the German’s were ferocious fighters. Once encircled, the decision was voiced in the Front TOC that no attempt to relieve the DVA divisions because they would continue to fight drawing more Chinese Divisions in around them, allowing the rest of the Front to break contact and move into more defensible positions farther north.

The Frontal Commander (who’s parents had both died during the Great Patriotic War) decided to make no attempted to relieve the DVA divisions, he was heard by the DVA liaison officer and 2 DVA staff officers then working in the TOC as saying it was fitting that the “Germans die in the Service of Russia after the horror inflicted on us in the last war.”

These two events had a serious affect on the DVA officers. When they were returned to Germany they shared the experiences with the DVA high command in private. The Commanders of the DVA were incensed. They were not the German fascists of the last war they were socialists, they even went so far in their thinking that they were better socialists than the soviets. Quickly, the High Command of the DVA determined that although they made exceptional socialists, in they eyes of their socialist brothers they would only ever be Germans to them. They determined that it would be better to join with their western brothers, than to be the cannon fodder for the Russians in their war in the east.

Secret talks were opened through the US Army’s Potsdam House with the Government of the FRG. 1 October 1996 was set as a date that the DVA would stage a coup, ousting the government of Erick Hoenecker on grounds of corruption. The FRG’s security services helped to fabricate the evidence.

On 2 October 1996, the coup was staged. On 3 October the Military Government of the DDR, formally withdrew from the Warsaw Pact and Requested that the GSFG be withdrawn from the DDR.

The Soviet Union didn’t respond until 5 October. They were taken totally of guard by the coup, and the demands of the new German Military government. The response when it came was predictable; there government of the lawful government of the DDR was to be reinstalled. Troops from the GSFG would aid in that effort. GSFG forces began to move on Berlin. The new President of the DDR went on National Television that night in an orchestrated event where he begged for assistance from their German brothers to the West. At 0430 local time on the morning of the 6th the Bundeswehr crossed the IGB, to “aid a brother German state in expelling an unwanted Army of Occupation which had stayed on German soil for 50 years” and “ was taking action to prevent the self-determination of the German people”.

Notes:
1) All units were Category A with Exception of 3rd Army Units (Less 11th Motorized Rifle Division), 2nd Motorized Rifle Division, and 10th Motorized Rifle Division; all of which where Category B.
2) 11TH Motorized Rifle Division and 9th Tank Division reforming after original units bearing those designations were destroyed in the Far Eastern Theater of Operations. They were reforming as Category A units, using surviving members of the original formations as cadre.
3) 2nd and 10th Motorized Rifle Divisions mobilized in early 1996 to replace the original 11th Motorized Rifle Division, and 9th Tank Division in the 3rd and 5th Armies when those units deployed to the Far Eastern Theater of Operations as part of the Warsaw Pact Volunteer Formations sent East in January and February of 1996.
4) 6th and 12th Motorized Rifle Divisions Mobilized in late July 1996 in anticipation of replacing 7th Tank and 1st Motorized Rifle Divisions which were preparing to deploy as part of a second group of Warsaw Pact Volunteer formations.